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One of the most common promises in health technology is simple: we save clinicians time.

It's an attractive claim—and often a true one. But in the NHS, saving time alone is rarely enough to secure adoption.

In this guest article, Dr Junaid Hussain, GP and Co-founder of Health Collider, explains why "time saved" is one of the easiest benefits to claim, yet one of the hardest for NHS buyers to justify. Drawing on his experience in urgent care and market access, he explores how health technology companies can translate efficiency into measurable value that procurement teams can defend.

When Clinicians Save Time, They Don't Get It Back

Most of my clinical work has been in out-of-hours general practice, delivered over the phone and by video while GP surgeries are closed. It has taught me something I wish every health tech founder knew before writing their pitch deck.

When a tool saves me time, I don't get the time back.

If a template, decision support tool or AI scribe takes four minutes off a consultation, those four minutes don't become a cup of tea. They become the next patient in the queue.

Out-of-hours general practice is a queue that never really empties—and much of the NHS operates in exactly the same way. Saved time is almost immediately absorbed into patient demand before anyone has the opportunity to measure it.

Health Collider sees the same pattern across its clinician network. When we asked clinicians what happens to the time AI saves them, the overwhelming response was that it simply becomes more work. In a stretched health service, spare capacity rarely exists long enough to appear on a report.

The Minutes Nobody Can Find

This is good news for patients—but it creates a challenge for health technology companies.

Tell an NHS buyer your product saves clinicians six minutes per patient and they hear something different. They hear a benefit that:

• won't appear in any financial report,

• can't easily be converted into budget savings,

• and will be difficult to demonstrate during a procurement review.

The NHS has a term for this: non-cash-releasing benefits.

They're valuable. They're appreciated. But they aren't money that finance teams can spend.

A finance director can't renew your software licence using minutes that have already been invested in seeing the next patient.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

Today's NHS is under unprecedented operational and financial pressure.

With NHS England being integrated into the Department of Health and Social Care, Integrated Care Boards reducing running costs, and organisations being asked to deliver more with fewer resources, procurement teams increasingly need investments they can justify with robust evidence.

AI scribes provide a good example.

One London programme plans to deploy AI documentation tools to 20,000 clinicians over four years, aiming to return thousands of hours to patient care.

That's an important ambition.

The difficult question comes afterwards:

Where did those hours actually go?

What NHS Buyers Can Measure

Fortunately, procurement is evolving.

The Department of Health and Social Care's Value-Based Procurement guidance for medical technology—including digital health and AI—places far greater emphasis on measurable value than purchase price alone.

Whole-life cost should account for no more than 40% of tender evaluation, while at least 60% should come from broader value domains, including:

• Efficiency

• Patient and staff outcomes

• Social value

• Supply chain resilience

• Organisational purpose

That creates an opportunity—but only if suppliers present evidence in language procurement teams can use.

Saving time is only the starting point.

Four Ways to Build a Stronger Business Case

1. Turn Time Into Capacity

Don't simply say you save minutes.

Show what those minutes become:

• More appointments

• Shorter waiting lists

• Reduced locum spend

• Clinics finishing on time

Measure outcomes your buyer is already accountable for.

2. Identify Both Budgets

Often, the department paying for your technology isn't the department receiving the benefit.

If those decision-makers sit in different teams, your real challenge isn't demonstrating value—it's bringing both people into the conversation.

3. Agree Success Before the Pilot Begins

Before launching a pilot, agree:

• what success looks like,

• who will measure it,

• and what evidence will trigger procurement.

Without clear exit criteria, pilots risk becoming extended free trials.

4. Arrive Procurement-Ready

Clinical enthusiasm alone isn't enough.

Bring the documentation buyers expect, including:

• DTAC compliance

• Clinical Safety Case

• Draft DPIA

Your clinical champions should spend their time advocating for your solution—not chasing paperwork.

Where These Conversations Are Happening

GIANT Health brings together clinicians, innovators, procurement leaders and NHS decision-makers under one roof, making it one of the few places where the people who build, buy and use healthcare technology can have these conversations together.

During GIANT Health 2026, several conference sessions directly address these challenges, including:

• The NHS National Procurement Show – exploring value-based procurement and successful clinical pilots.

• The Innovating NHS Systems Congress – examining neighbourhood health and system transformation.

• The NHS National AI Conference – discussing AI implementation, reducing administrative burden, and building compelling business cases for investment.

• The Future Hospital Show – focusing on investment priorities and hospital transformation.

Taken together, these sessions illustrate a common theme:

Technology succeeds when value can be demonstrated—not simply promised.

Following the Minutes

This isn't an argument against technology that saves clinicians time.

Quite the opposite.

The NHS needs more tools that reduce administrative burden and allow clinicians to focus on patient care.

But saving time is only half the story.

The real challenge is translating those saved minutes into outcomes that procurement teams can measure, finance teams can defend, and organisations can confidently invest in for the long term.

That translation sits at the heart of Health Collider's work. If you're exhibiting at GIANT Health, bring your value proposition to the team on the exhibition floor—and they'll help you understand how it sounds through the eyes of an NHS buyer, before a buyer does.

About the Author

Dr Junaid Hussain is a GP with a background in urgent care and out-of-hours medicine, and Co-founder of Health Collider, a clinician-led NHS market access consultancy supporting health technology and medtech companies. Health Collider combines market access strategy with insight from a network of more than 800 NHS clinicians.

Learn more here.